Artwork: "The Evolution Series ~ 2008"

In all there are 41 pieces in this series of drawings of individual and collective octaves.

The series evolved as I intentionally tried to remain aware of each movement of the hand and practiced self observation for a designated period of time or during lulls in business each day while working as a receptionist in a very busy engineering office for several months. I was wishing to be consciously aware of self as a living breathing organism as much as possible and not be taken by the outer ebb and flow of the energy in the office.

I have been posting one drawing each week on the weekly work page. So far I have posted three. Each is a direct result of my experiences of the day it was drawn. If you sense yourself in time and space as your eyes try to follow the continuous lines without losing contact with yourself, you may be able to hear the story of each octave - not my story - but your own.

... to be continued

Where am I in relation my work today?

I picked up Life Is Real Only Then, When I AM  (by G.I. Gurdjieff) this morning to look for some help before moving into my day of outer work around the house. As I started to leaf through the pages looking for the table of contents, the page fell open to the prologue which appeared to be speaking directly to the question I have:”Where am I in relation to my inner work today?” I thought I’d share it here. Hopefully it will be useful to you as well.

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“I am…? But what has become of that full sensing of the whole of myself, formerly always in me in just such cases of self questioning during the process of self remembering…

Is it possible that this inner ability was achieved by me thanks to all kinds of self-denial and frequent self-goading only in order that now, when its influence for my Being is more necessary even than air, it should vanish without a trace?

No! This cannot be! …

Something here is not right!

If this is true, then everything in the sphere of reason is illogical.

But in me is not yet atrophied the possibility of actualizing conscious labor and intentional suffering! …

According to all past events I must still be.

I wish! … and will be!!

Moreover, my Being is necessary not only for my own personal egoism but also for the common welfare of all humanity.

My Being is necessary to all people; even more necessary to them than their own felicity and their happiness of today.

I wish to be … I still am!”

“This fantastic soliloquy proceeded in me on the 6^th of November, 1927 early in the morning of one of the Montmartre night cafés in Paris when, tired to exhaustion from my “black” thoughts, I had decided to go home and there once more to try whether I might perhaps succeed in sleeping at least a little. …”

***

Gurdjieff then goes on to give an account of his state at the time of writing this book and what lead up to it. Perhaps, here, in this prologue left by our dear old rascally teacher, we can find some clues in relation to our own question of “Where am I in relation to my inner work today?” It is certainly worth re-reading.

The Good Householder: External Considering in the Work

 “Right external considering is very important in the work. It often happens that people who understand very well the necessity of external considering in life do not understand the necessity of external considering in the work; they decide that just because they are in the work, they have the right to not consider. Whereas in reality, in the work, that is, for a man’s own successful work, ten times more external considering is necessary than in life, because only external considering on his part shows his valuation of the work; and success in the work is always proportional to the valuation and understanding of the work.
Remember that the work cannot begin on a level lower than an obyvatel, that is, on a level lower than ordinary life. This is a very important principle which, for some reason or other, is very easily forgotten...”
ISOM (In Search of the Miraculous, PD Ouspensky) Page 153-154